Cornyn, commenting publicly for the first time since Mateer’s speeches were unearthed this month by CNN, said the speeches apparently were not disclosed to him as they should have been under a screening process set up by him and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“We requested that sort of information about speeches and the like on his application,” said Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. “And to my knowledge there was no information given about those, so it’s fair to say I was surprised.”

Mateer, a conservative Christian and top aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has remained publicly silent about the speeches, which have been denounced by an array of LGBT and civil rights groups.

Cruz, also a religious conservative, also has declined public comment on the speeches.

Mateer was named by President Donald Trump this month to be a judge for the Eastern District of Texas. At the time, he came in for praise from both Cornyn and Cruz, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will review Mateer’s nomination.

But Cornyn said Thursday that he is re-evaluating Mateer’s nomination in light of the undisclosed speeches as well as other public utterances.

“I am evaluating that information, and I understand there may be even additional information other than that which has previously been disclosed,” he said in a conference call with Texas reporters.

Cornyn, formerly a Texas Supreme Court justice, said there should be no “religious test” for judges. “But it is important,” he added, “that all of our judges be people who can administer equal justice under the law and can separate their personal views from their duties as a judge.”

He added: “Because the information had not been previously disclosed, we were not able to have that kind of conversation with Mr. Mateer, so we’ve got some work to do.”

The Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, already has questioned Mateer’s impartiality. In a statement, she called his views “reprehensible.”

Meteer, as the former general counsel for a Plano-based group now known as the First Liberty Institute, a religious advocacy organization, is no stranger to the culture wars over same-sex marriage, transgender rights and the lead-up to Texas’ bathroom bill.

Before Cornyn and Cruz recommended Mateer to Trump, he was screened by the bipartisan Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, a 35-member group of lawyers, judges and other legal professionals who work with the two Senate offices.

David Prichard, a San Antonio attorney who chairs the committee, said he could not talk about Meteer’s case. But, he added, the issues surrounding his past remarks will be a “fair topic” for the Senate.

Prichard is a partner in the local firm of Prichard Hawkins Young, which specializes in business litigation and represents companies in product liability cases, oil and gas disputes and other matters. He has been chair of the judicial evaluation committee since 2013.

“This is going to be sorted out at the appropriate place,” Prichard said in a recent interview. “That’s why you have Senate hearings. That’s why you have a confirmation vote. … Let the chips fall where they may.”

In a May 2015 speech unearthed by CNN, Mateer recounted a Colorado lawsuit in which the parents of a transgender child sued her school for preventing her from using the bathroom of her choice.

“In Colorado, a public school has been sued because a first-grader, and I forget the sex, she’s a girl who thinks she’s a boy or a boy who thinks she’s a girl, it’s probably that, a boy who thinks she’s a girl,” Mateer said. “And the school said, ‘Well, she’s not using the girl’s restroom.’ And so she has now sued to have a right to go in.

“Now, I submit to you, a parent of three children who are now young adults, a first-grader really knows what their sexual identity? I mean it just really shows you how Satan’s plan is working and the destruction that’s going on.”

In that same speech, Mateer criticized the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage, saying it could lead to what he called “disgusting” new forms of matrimony, including polygamy and bestiality. “We’re back to that time where debauchery rules,” he said.